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Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
142
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
RSA Identity Governance and...
Average Rating
6.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (23rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 25.3%, down 31.1% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.3% mindshare, down 1.4% since last year.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Identity Management (IM)
 

Featured Reviews

SunilkumarNaganuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced device administration hindered by complex deployment and security limitations
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) needs to improve the profiling preauthentication. They are very poor in asset classification and should focus on improving the preauthentication profiling, especially for NAC use cases. This will give them a roadmap for software-defined access (SDA) use cases and network segmentation. Threat detection capabilities are very weak. Additionally, the product is vulnerable and has many bugs.
Harshul Nayak - PeerSpot reviewer
Lacking customization, poor support, but useful auditing
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle can be deployed on the cloud or on-premise. We have our own proprietary cloud solution created along with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle and it's deployed on the AWS platform. We use RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle for a broad level use case for…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Among the most valuable features is TACACS."
"[One of the most valuable features] is just the ease of use. It's pretty simple to set up certs that we can add to our clients to make sure that they connect properly, [as is] whitelisting Mac addresses."
"From a configuration point of view, it's simple."
"ISE's most valuable feature is integration between IT and OTs."
"RADIUS is the best feature because it supplies authentication to our entire campus."
"It has all of the features available, in fact, more than what you need."
"Cisco ISE is a powerful solution. It gives us the ability to control who's accessing our network, and Cisco has made it very easy."
"It does what it's supposed to. We use a certificate-based authentication method for corporate-managed devices. That means when a user walks in with their managed laptop and plugs it into the network, it chats with Cisco ISE in the background, allows it on the network, and away they go."
"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."
"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."
"With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes."
"The data collection is excellent and easy to do. It does not require a lot of configuration nor does it require rules to be written like other competitors do."
"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."
 

Cons

"I would like to see integration with other vendors, and the RADIUS integration needs to be improved a little bit."
"Cisco ISE's real-time data analytics for database logging could be improved."
"The interface is not very user-friendly and it is not simple to use."
"The initial setup process is complex since there are so many big components."
"Also, the menus could have been much simpler. There are many redundant things. That's a problem with all Cisco solutions. There are too many menus and redundant things on all of them."
"It is too complex. It should be easy to use. We are not such a big team. We only have three engineers to work with this, and we don't use all of the functionality of the product. Its range of functionality is too wide for us, and this is the reason why we are thinking of switching to a more simple product. We have shortlisted a Microsoft solution. We have a big footprint for Microsoft products, especially in security. As a global strategy, we try to leverage to the maximum what is possible around Microsoft."
"The UI and UX could be more seamless and easier to use."
"In an upcoming release, it would be nice to have NAC already standard in the solution."
"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."
"Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy costs."
"If you use the appliance version then it won't handle a huge database volume."
"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."
"The user interface and workflow need improvement, and more connectors would help."
"RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle could improve out-of-the-box customization."
"This product is missing a lot of features which other competitors are providing. One of the key features that are missing right now is risk scoring. Additionally, there is not much scope for customization - everything is hard-coded and predefined, so it does not allow the developers to make many modifications."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The SMARTnet technical support is available at an additional cost."
"If you go directly with Cisco for the implementation it's very, very expensive."
"For the Avast virus scan, we pay around USD $95 per machine for five years which includes all updates and technical support."
"The pricing is fair for what it does."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, one being cheap and ten being expensive."
"Over the years, licensing has been confusing and complicated because there are so many different licenses for each different product and each different iteration of the product."
"Cisco is expensive, but it's the cost for all the functions and value it brings. Functions like internet solutions, integrations, security, and many more features are important, but it's expensive for some clients."
"The solution’s pricing is okay."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"Pricing varies based on user count/number of modules you need."
"We are using the cloud platform, but we don't find it compatible to be served as a multi-tenant platform. This is a large drawback. It becomes expensive because it is then an all-dedicated solution. You have to have a separate tenant for each client, which increases the cost. The overall unit pricing can be less expensive than how it is right now."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?
Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...
What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?
OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...
How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?
Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...
What do you like most about RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes.
What needs improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy...
What advice do you have for others considering RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?
Two of the members of our company's in-house team and a consultant for support were required to take care of the maintenance phase of the product. I rate the overall tool a seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Cisco ISE
SecurID
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University
NTT Com Asia, Virgin Blue, Bank of Uganda, EMEA Telecommunications Company, LAit (Lazio Innovazione Tecnologica), NyNet, OTP Bank, Red Bull Racing, Rupert House School, Signify, UK Local Authority, Bancolombia, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (BPPR), TIVIT, Array Services, International Computerware, KPMG LLP, Moffitt Cancer Center
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC). Updated: May 2025.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.